To report intimidating beggars to the police

[alloweraoway]

It really annoys me, 4 men lined up along the entrances and exits to the supermarkets in our high street, they accost you when you go in, and accost you when you come out. I volunteer in several local homeless shelters, and I know these men are not local. And I come through the high street early mornings before the shops open, and they are not there, so I know they are lying about having to sleep there too. Much is made of setting up their bedding and everything, but it is all play acting.. I am normally very live and let live, but I don't want to keep being harassed like this. One sitting by the supermarket exit grabbed at my ankle as I came out just now, and asked if I would give him £2. A couple of weeks ago one barred my entrance when I tried to go in, and asked for money

I’m surprised the supermarkets aren’t doing something about it, doesn’t sound great for business.

If they are barring your entrance or physically touching you then absolutely report them to the police.

"Can you spare some change?" is fine. Touching you or barring your way in the street/doorway is not fine.

Yes I would report. That is harassment.

Most rough sleeping homeless do not disclose where they sleep due to the violent crimes they are often victim to. People seem to love attacking homeless while they are sleeping. Kicking them, pissing on them, setting them on fire. Female rough sleepers are even more secretive as there is higher risk of rape and murder compared to male rough sleepers.

We do know that there are many rough sleeping homeless that are turned away from homeless shelters as well. So I don’t know what you mean about “these men are not local” you can’t possibly know every homeless person in your area. Professional homeless focussed social workers can’t even do an accurate head count of homeless and they are doing it as a full time job.

I do agree you could call the nonemergency police line and ask them to talk to the homeless beggars and give them a run down on dos and don’ts. Grabbing/touching someone is definitely not on. But I would think that if you are such a key worker in homeless shelters, why would you not call your contacts and see if they can go round and offer shelter and assistance to these homeless men? It seems a bit heartless to me to call the police instead.

I disagree. This is unacceptable and most definitely IS a matter for the police. If we don't complain we are allowing it. Whether they are 'homeless ' 'local' or not is irrelevant in this instance - that is a whole other topic!

I don’t agree that not complaining to the police is allowing it. Since OP is an active and regular supporter of her local homeless shelters, it seems to me that the more compassionate thing would be to use those contacts to get the homeless men the support they need. Then they’d be in a shelter and not begging outside the supermarket. Surely that is in everyone’s best interest?

Grabbing her ankle whilst begging for food, while not acceptable, was an act of desperation. Punishing desperation when you have the contacts and means to help a homeless person so they won’t need to beg is cruel and heartless.

The police may fine them and force them to move on, making them more desperate and more likely to resort to mugging/crime or even more aggressive forms of begging.

Well it's all very well being 'compassionate' until it's you who is being grabbed at, or worse your children. Being compassionate doesn't mean you have to allow for your personal boundaries to be crossed.We should feel safe in our own communities so respect should work both ways homeless or not. Being compassionate might look good to others but the reality is sometimes you are just being taken for a fool.

The police may fine them and force them to move on, making them more desperate and more likely to resort to mugging/crime or even more aggressive forms of begging. This amounts to: 'we should ignore and tolerate being grabbed at and assaulted in a mild way, because if we try to do something about it, the aggressor may escalate to greater forms of assault'. This is an awful attitude in terms of personal safety.

..oh, and being scared to take a stand just because it might escalate isn't right either imo.

Genuine homeless tend to avoid speaking to people.

The aggressive ones are usually driven in and are not homeless but are part of organised crime.

Actually you could argue if Britain were a person, her boundaries are being unfairly crossed each day....should we continue to turn a blind eye to that?

But your advice will generate more aggression and more risk of being grabbed? Seems illogical to not use the compassionate solution that not only will remove the homeless men from begging outside the supermarket but also give them the assistance they need so they won’t be grabbing young women in the middle of the night in a car park?

Again, no one is saying accept it or turn a blind eye to it, it is just that I am suggesting a sustainable long term solution that creates the lowest risk to rhe public, including vulnerable women, whereas you are advocating a punitive solution that escalates the desperation and the more desperate and marginalised a human being is, the more likely they will go from antisocial behaviour to outright violent crime.

Really, you are going to use that metaphor to drag refugees and immigrants into this discussion?

No it doesn’t. To say it amounts to that is to take my posts recklessly out of their context.

I don't think the police are interested. It's exactly the same where I live. Shops, supermarkets, petrol stations, outside our tube station. There are some very aggressive people. I am never sure how much they are 'homeless' rather than being part of organised gangs though not least as some of them also seem to deal drugs (on our front door step which the police are also not concerned about)

Begging gang run by OCG. Report. They’ll move on.

There are a fair few homeless people around my town and the town where I work buy fortunately I have not run into many aggressive beggars at all. There is a big underground car park for one of the local supermarkets where a lot of rough sleepers gather, but they're not hurting anyone and I've never seen any of them accost people.

If anyone is habitually grabbing at you or being aggressive, it's reasonable to speak to the police.

In the city where we are there are loads and I'm never bothered by them. But recently I took my three toddlers with me to go to a play museum and was quite annoyed when one followed us for 2 streets asking for money over and over again after I had already politely said I had none the first time. I did start to feel a little intimidated and got my little ones very close till eventually we made it into the museum.

because they have no interest in being "helped" and I don't think they are homeless

Op, no harm but what you're talking about sounds a lot like men who have been trafficked and with your experience im surprised that's not on your radar. It would explain why they aren't sleeping there, why they are there in a close area to each other, why they are under so much pressure to make as much money as they can and why they aren't known to any support services and why they've no interest in 'help' when clearly they are not in a good place. If it were me, I would be reporting them but as potential victims of human trafficking not as asb.

YANBU. Of course people will come along to say you’re horrible and mean as they’re mentally unwell, but they’re never so mentally unwell that they grab other men are they? It’s always women and the elderly they harass so they know what they’re doing on a level.

Also the vast majority of the UKs homeless population are 'hidden homeless' eg sofa surfing or living in temporary supported accommodation or temporary LA accommodation. You will only see a tiny percentage of your 'local' homeless population in shelters/ hostels/day centres.

Wow.

So because homeless people are 'desperate' we should just tolerate them harassing people going about their lives?

There's loads of 'homeless ' where I live. Most of them have homes and spend their days begging. Sometimes they walk amongst traffic on the busy inner ring road whilst it's stopped at the lights, trying car windows and doors and generally being a nuisance.

Others have been offered accommodation, multiple times but have turned it down.

Stop making excuses for them.

You are part of the problem supporting Romanian begging gangs and the overall problem. You assume they might turn to violent crime, you support not to report them because they are poor organised gang, this is why they spread. Sorry to say, but dumb naive people who stand up for criminals are part of the public safety problem, that's you. You are not concerned about public safety and your fellow citizens, kids and families, you are only and solely concerned about criminals because of your subjective personal assumptions they maybe, but maybe turn to violent crime which has absolutely no proof. Furthermore, you are forcing your personal false assumption on the majority who concerned.